Editor: Council are stewards of Canmore’s natural environment, including our wildlife, their habitat and corridors.
Our natural areas, the magnificence of our wildlife, their freedom and the space to move in health and safety through our Bow Valley, is a value and responsibility that previous councils, administrations and the community have shared.
Once eroded or lost, the wildlife and their habitat are gone forever.
And what would replace these natural corridors, habitat patches and immediately adjacent areas? More 6,000 square foot homes? Large, multi-unit residences? All those service facilities typical of an urban setting?
Development once built cannot be undone.
The MDP process
The 2016 MDP was to be based on the 2009 Community Sustainability Plan (CSP) at second reading, which was derived from a two-year, grassroots up consultation process. The CSP included six key conservation polices in its ‘stewardship’ section, consistent with the 1998 MDP, which did not appear in the first draft of the new MDP.
When planning asked for public input into the first draft of the MDP, for the stewardship section alone, there were 26 pages of recommendations calling for stronger environmental protection like that in the old MDP and CSP.
The response of planning to these public submissions was: no change in policy direction.
Was the MDP to bear no resemblance to the CSP after all? Was there no place for public input? No regard for Canmore’s statutory documents of the past 18 years?
In December 2015, council did listen to the public. Mayor Borrowman and Councillor Krausert made amendments to require an EIS for new land uses both in and directly adjacent to corridors and patches, and to provide a definition of adjacency in number of metres consistent with the CSP and 2012 BCEAG. Planning did not bring these amendments forward.
At the March public hearing, the public made 53 written and over 12 verbal submissions. Council again responded with several amendments to require an EIS for any new land uses directly adjacent to a corridor or patch. Again, planning failed to bring forward these amendments until Version 4 of the MDP which came before council on June 14 .
Planning then brought forward their Version 5, which did not include council’s latest amendments. After consideration, the policies asked for by the public in fall 2015 and at the March 22 public hearing, were removed, and replaced with policies which are still not as environmentally protective as those of the 1998 MDP and CSP.
The new MDP
Where does this leave protection of our remaining natural environment, wildlife corridors and habitat patches?
1. Policy 4.2.11 is excellent, where no new development is permitted in corridors or patches, with carefully controlled exceptions. Policy 4.2.12 requires an EIS.
2. Now, an EIS is required for a new Area Structure Plan (ASP), Area Redevelopment Plan (ARP), and may be required for amendments thereto. Unlike the CSP, an EIS is not required for a Land Use Bylaw, subdivision or development permit or amendment thereto.
However, this is only satisfactory if policy 4.2.14 also requires that proposed land uses directly adjacent to corridors and patches are evaluated within a scientifically-based area of adjacency, consistent with BCEAG guidelines, where wildlife is most vulnerable to human impact.
3. There is no scientifically-based definition of adjacent consistent with 2012 BCEAG guidelines, where adjacency is defined within a range of 175 metres from a wildlife corridor and 250 metres from a habitat patch, and “new land use activities that are considered acceptable adjacent to wildlife corridors and habitat patches include those that are less intrusive.”
At present the only definition of adjacency is in Policy 4.2.14 which weakly states that the Town “will refer to the BCEAG … to determine adjacency, but other relevant criteria may be considered as well.”
4. This MDP still includes a two-tier approach to policies rather than having only one policy that applies to all development equally, like the 1998 MDP or the 2009 CSP.
5. There is no independent third party review. In its place, the EIS will be carried out by an independent biologist selected by the Town (in the 1998 MDP, Town policy was to have the developer’s consultant prepare an EIS, which would then be evaluated by an independent expert hired by the Town).
Independence of the Town’s consultant from the developer needs to be clarified so it does not slide into a collaborative EIS where the Towns’ consultant is not left free to revise, remediate or reject the land use proposal.
While this approach is considered to be more efficient in time and money, the cost of a third party review is worth it to protect our corridors and patches, especially when there were only five or six such reviews over the past 18 years
6. There is no option for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to provide a further in depth assessment of the developer’s plan by an independent biologist. Used only twice since 1998, this is a precautionary policy which should be available.
Although several policies from the 2009 CPS cannot be found in this 2016 MDP, with careful amendment it could provide effective protection of Canmore’s corridors and patches.
This would involve requiring that: in the EIS, land uses directly adjacent to corridors and patches are evaluated consistent with the science-based, BCEAG-specific definition of adjacency within the range of 175 to 250 metres; there are no two-tier policies that weaken the required EIS and strong definition of adjacency for some development proposals relative to another; there will be further clarification of how the independence of the Town’s consultant is assured in preparing the EIS; the option of an in depth EIA is available, if necessary – a tool which the Province has confirmed can be used at both the municipal and provincial level.
Council is the environmental steward of Canmore’s Bow Valley. Our trust is now placed in them.
Heather MacFadyen, chair,
Bow Corridor Organization for Responsible Development
